DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE
When you perform, certain episodes only happen once. And you know, when they happen, you have a story to tell for the rest of your life. For example, the following happened in 2012 while performing Nothing to Hide at the Geffen Playhouse. As I was about to reveal the end of a magic piece, a lady in the audience passed out. Holding the unseen card in my hand, the show had to stop, and I asked: “Is there a doctor in the house?” A young gentleman helped the person in need, and they left the theatre to recover. Still holding the playing card in my hand, my first line after the interruption was: “This was not part of the show... but if it were, it would have been the most elaborate piece of misdirection ever!”
It is a funny story, as this occurrence completely ruined the payoff of that illusion. I remember thinking there was little I could do in this situation because certain things were more important than the show you were doing. It would not make sense to repeat the illusion again since the audience would now anticipate surprises built into the structure of this piece, and the result would also not work the same. So, you have to accept defeat and move on. This was a once-in-a-lifetime coincidence; no need to overthink it.
Seven years later, again at the Geffen Playhouse, while performing Invisible Tango, another person in the crowd passes out. And I repeat the sentence I never thought I would say again: “Is there a doctor in the house?” And there was. After the patron had been taken care of, the show restarted again. Luckily for me, this time, the interruption was in a moment that didn’t affect any of the show's illusions.
Right after the performance, without even having time to think about this event happening to me again, the doctor who helped the person in need approached me and said that this was the second show of mine he was seeing. The first one was where the other lady passed out, and he was the doctor who had helped her. How many factors must be accounted for in this strange and miraculous coincidence? I could not believe what I was hearing. To stop this cycle from repeating again, I finished our interaction by asking him: “Please, don’t come to my shows again.” It was a joke, but the truth is that, until now, nobody has passed out in my shows again.